Lying on his bed, Gnat stares at the ceiling. He's still wearing the clothes from the break-in, even though they reek of sweat and vomit. He can’t sleep. His adrenaline levels are still too high.
As usual, he sneaked into the house without any trouble. His current set of foster parents believe that 'trust' is somehow a better pedagogical approach than 'distrust' and although he feels a deep disgust for 'soft' approaches of any kind, he has to admit these are the first foster parents he wouldn’t shove in front of a speeding truck if given the chance. That seriously worries him. From a very young age, he decided never to trust, let alone love, anyone. He'd rather endure the slow, gnawing agony of loneliness than face the brutal stab of a broken friendship or the loss of a loved one.
Despite the gravity of the situation, he has to chuckle when his thoughts drift back to what happened earlier. Who would have thought that he of all people would be the one to charge in and rescue that annoying little punk, Kwintens? But then again, he couldn’t have allowed Shadow to go in. He literally had to push her aside to stop her. He’s not a hero, but he does have a code. It's not a complicated one, but it’s something he lives by: never be in debt to anyone, because that always spells trouble in the end. The fact that Max had gone into the school in the middle of the night was more or less his fault, and, well, he couldn’t leave her there on her own, could he? She’s his friend.
He meant to be fast and stealthy, like the Indians —sorry, Native Americans— from the old adventure novels he has dragged from foster home to foster home. It might even have worked, if he hadn’t triggered the alarm right away. Urged on by the deafening wail and fueled by worry, pure instinct had guided him, until he had tripped over Max’s limp body and tumbled forward with so much speed that he almost slid headfirst into an enormous black void.
Supernatural stuff doesn’t usually make him nervous, but half a corridor completely disappearing into sheer nothingness? That was too much, so he did the only thing he could—ignore it. He turned to Max, lying on the ground, chalk white and motionless, her knees folded up to her chest like a baby. Tomorrow, she would undoubtedly wake up with a gigantic shoe-shaped bruise just below her midriff.
Panic gripped his heart. Was she even breathing? Was her head resting in some kind of liquid. Please, he prayed, don’t let it be blood. He hated blood. To his relief, it was only vomit. Vomit was fine. Vomit he knew as no other. He couldn’t even recall how many times he had dragged his drunk stepmother up the stairs, barely conscious, throwing up all over him. The smell of vomit, mixed with the stench of burning cigarettes she used to threaten him with, was the scent of his youth.
After they had managed to escape the school, they were extremely lucky that Slug had somehow pulled off his time-manipulation trick. If he hadn’t, they’d right now be sitting in some dark cellar, staring into blinding interrogation lamps. He had seen the movies.
Wait... what’s that? Although everything is silent again, he rolls out of bed. It’s just in time. The moment he feels the coarse fabric of the carpet prickle through his shirt, a beam light sweeps over the blankets, where he had been lying only a moment ago. Without a sound, he rolls further under the bed until he’s stopped by the wall and holds his breath.
—
Three kilometers away from Gnat, Slug sits on the toilet. Not because he needs to, but because it’s the best place for him to focus. His mind is racing. His thoughts shoot erratically —left, right, up, down— like an out of control pinball machine, with too many balls in play. A growing tangle of questions and worries spin around, collide, merge, transform, producing even more questions fill his head until it hurts. He needs to slow them down, freeze them in time, so he can isolate and examine each one individually. But time marches on, frustratingly normal, while the events of earlier tonight replay in his mind in an endless accelerating loop.
The start of the evening is clear. Together with Shadow and Gnat, they are waiting for Max's return. But when Shadow, sick with worry, wants to go inside to look for him, Gnat pushes her to the ground and disappears under the hedge instead of her. Shortly after, the alarm goes off, and that's when time starts to pull at him. At first, he resisted by focusing on other things, but when Gnat and Max reappeared from under the hedge, and the sound of footsteps and barking dogs approached from around the corner, he completely lost control. It had been probably the most intense time-surge he’d ever experienced. He only managed to stay conscious by focusing on a small fly buzzing above him. What a magnificent creature, one of nature's wonders. And then, suddenly, he’s home, with no idea how he got there.
Now he sits on the closed toilet lid, once again trying to slow time down, with very little success. Shadow is right, he should have trained more, harder, better. He sighs. Everyone always thinks he’s so calm and maybe it looks like that from the outside, but on the inside he’s a mess.
When he finally decides that it's no use and he should go to bed, he feels the floor shake. It's not more than a tremble, but definitely something unnatural. It’s enough to make him hesitate to open the door. He waits a few seconds and then, when he sees a large shadow move toward the staircase through the semi-transparent glass of the bathroom door, he knows he’s in big trouble.
—
Shadow lies on her bunk bed. The new girl from Syria, below her, is already sound asleep, as are most of the refugees in the crowded dorm room. But that doesn't mean it's quiet—far from it. The noise is almost deafening: a symphony of breathing, snoring, coughing, tossing, and occasionally, someone waking up with a scream. She doesn’t find it scary or threatening—on the contrary. Having spent almost her entire life in dorms like this, she’s not sure she could even sleep if it were silent. For her, these sounds are the soundtrack of peace. This is home.
She is wide awake, still furious at Gnat for preventing her from helping Max. Why he suddenly had this uncharacteristic surge of chivalry completely escapes her. Suddenly, she pricks up her ears. Something is wrong. Everything has gone quiet. Only from the bunk beds around her, she can still hear people breathing, but when those sounds also stop one by one, she knows she’s in trouble.
In the strange, uncharacteristic silence that has settled over the room, she hears only the rustling of clothes as someone moves closer and sits down on the edge of the bed below her. She has encountered evil so many times, in so many forms, that she immediately recognizes the feeling. The presence below her emanates pure sadism, and the only thing she can do is remain as motionless as possible and stay silent. Then a hand slowly but deliberately grabs the edge of her bed.